1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the distribution of digital content (e.g., digital music, videos, photographs, and other digital content) to portable devices (e.g., mobile phones, portable digital audio/video players, and other portable devices) and other devices.
2. Discussion of the Background
Digital content downloading systems have been deployed and designed to allow a registered user to download copyrighted content to the user's personal computer (PC). These systems restrict the user's usage of the content using what is called digital rights management (DRM) technology. While the usage restrictions vary by service, there is typically a restriction on the number and/or type of devices on which the downloaded content may be placed. For example, DRM technology may be used to prevent the user from transferring copies of content that have been legally downloaded to the user's PC onto more than five portable devices, but may allow the user to place the content on any networked device within a subnet or behind a router in the user's home media system (e.g., windows Media extender technology or windows media connect). These devices onto which the user may place DRM protected downloaded content are sometimes called “trusted machines.”
Portable DRM strategies exist that allow a portable player, such as a music or video player or a cell phone, to associate itself with a single primary host computer that can transfer content and licenses to the portable device. In an effort to reduce piracy, some DRM technologies make it very difficult or even impossible to transfer into a portable device's content library content stored on a particular computer, unless the particular computer is the primary computer with which the portable device is associated. Thus, if a user wants to place into a content library of a portable device content that is stored on a computer other than the primary computer with which the portable device is associated, such as a computer in a retail store, some DRM systems would prohibit doing so as the retail store computer would not be a trusted device.
Most protected digital content services employ a license server that keeps track of the content purchased (or rented) from the content service so that in the case of a local data storage failure (hard drive crash—loss of portable player) the purchased content can be restored to the owner. The license server may track all purchases by user account, which may be accessed remotely by way of a data link and which may be protected by a user name and password.
Typically, these license servers also keep the unique ID's of the physical computers on which the licensed material is placed. The unique ID's are registered so that if there is a limit placed on the number of physical computers on which the content can be placed, there is a way to verify that the limit is not being exceeded.
In short, to be able to sell digital content at retail location and transfer the content directly onto a customer's portable device so that the content is included in the device's content library, the portable device must connect to a host computer at the retail location, which computer may not be within the “trusted list” of computers for the owner of the portable device. Thus, in some cases, it is not an easy task for an owner of a retail store to place digital content on a customer's portable device when the portable device is part of a DRM system that restricts the content that can be placed on the portable device and included in the content library of the portable device.
In addition, there are numerous different DRM schemes, and each portable device may have its own properties and capabilities. Thus, if the owner of a portable device were to take his or her portable device into a retail environment, the process of loading content onto that device would be extremely complex, forcing the user to go through many steps of identifying themselves, logging onto their account, choosing an encoding format for the content (e.g., WMA, AAC, Real audio etc.) selecting a DRM system (e.g. Windows Media DRM, Fairplay, etc.), etc.
Furthermore, once the purchased content is placed into the customer's portable device, the customer will most likely want to transfer a copy of the protected content onto the customer's home PC and obtain the necessary license so that he customer can “play” (e.g., listen to, view, read, interact with, or the like) the content on the home PC. Accordingly, there is a need to make such a transfer as easily as possible for the customer.
Other problems associated with placing content on a portable device also exist. The present invention aims to simplify the placing of content on portable devices and other devices.